“The consortium [of Japanese publishers and publishing trade organizations] basically says that Apple isn’t doing enough to defend against their material being pirated and sold through various apps for the iPhone and iPad. Apple says it’s impossible to check for all copyrighted material as it screens each submitted app, but the group says it’s unconvinced.”

If you do an app search, you’re almost certain to find an app that trades in pirated content at or near the top of your search results, just like pirated versions of popular manga will top results of any Google search you conduct. These apps usually aren’t free, so the app creators are making at least some marginal profit off of pirated works, which I think just about everyone not actively doing that sort of thing agrees is uncool. So it doesn’t seem unreasonable to me for these publishers to ask for Apple to step up, at least in the case of aggregation apps, particularly when some of the apps undoubtedly in question trade in nothing but pirated material.

It seems distasteful to ask publishers to license additional titles when so many people are worried that the currently licensed properties will see completion, so I think I’ll put the license requests on hiatus for a while. As we all ponder the future of the manga industry, I thought I’d share an email entitled “Fighting back against manga piracy” pointing to an approach that I find unsettling:

“It’s written by somebody who decided to attack the manga aggregator sites by going directly to their ‘sponsors’ and complaining about child p__n. This one action caused a chain reaction that got several piracy sites black listed from AdSense. Without ad money these sites can’t support themselves. The readers won’t donate or buy memberships. Most sites mentioned in the above link have found alternative sources of ad revenue.

“It’s important to note that going directly to Google would have done nothing. Only those who actually pay for the ads can make the ad software providers act. Those paying for the ads don’t care about piracy per se, but the notion that their money is supporting content that sexualizes teenagers and children and bankrupting the youth of America will motivate them to demand changes in a hurry. They simply don’t know where their ads are appearing but they should be informed, repeatedly.

“I just wanted you to know that there is a way for people who care about the manga industry to fight back. And win. This is the only way.

“But you didn’t hear it from me…”

I’m not going to link to the site, as the URL is a positive mine field for unwanted attention and comment spam, but you’re all bright enough to do a search and find it on your own.

Now, you all know that I find these aggregator sites revolting. They attempt to turn a profit without compensating the original creators, and they do so with a sheen of artificial legitimacy that too often goes unchallenged by uncritical journalists. But this approach – demonizing the content in an effort to hinder its unethical purveyors – strikes me as counterproductive in the extreme. Instead of pushing Google to respect copyright and intellectual property and vet its advertisers, it pokes at Google’s worst and most reactionary impulses while fostering the kind of lurid suspicion that has always plagued manga to some degree.

I don’t doubt that the approach works, just as charging mobsters with tax evasion works, but it seems like there’s a concomitant level of damage to the product and the industry you’re trying to protect. You’re smearing the comics in an effort to keep people from pirating them, and while that probably keeps aggregators on their toes, it gives manga the kind of black eye that lasts longer than the inconvenience created for aggregators.

And as I said, I’d love for these aggregators to sweat. But I want them to sweat because they’re illegally profiting off of the work of others and damaging a legitimate enterprise through their selfishness and greed.

At least nine times out of ten, comics from Japan tend to be about winning. Characters win the person of their dreams or the national championship or the right to be called King of the Pirates, or what have you. So it’s always fun to see a little failure in manga form. It’s always possible that the schlub who stars in Shunju Aono’s I’ll Give It My All… Tomorrow (Viz) will eventually succeed, or at least that he’ll stop quitting halfway through whatever he happens to be trying, but in the meantime, we can revel in the crushing disappointment. I should also note that the series is really funny and that Aono seems to be trying to eschew the “But isn’t this loser secretly really awesome?” undertones that inform similar schlub-centric comics. Viz has announced the print edition, and the press release is after the jump.

“As the magazine industry changes and old models are eclipsed by new, so, too, must YEN PLUS change, and it is with that in mind that I can announce officially that the July 2010 issue of YEN PLUS will be its last in print.

“Now before you despair too much, take a deep breath and focus on those last two words: ‘in print.’ Yes, the print magazine will be no more, but YEN PLUS will live on as an online manga anthology! As such, it will have the ability to reach more readers than ever before while giving those same readers an option to peruse manga (and maybe some light novels?) legitimately online.”

More details are to come, obviously, but it’s certainly an interesting development. In my opinion, the more digital anthologies, the better.

One theme that’s come up a lot in recent discussion of scanlations is that publishers need to do something to concoct a widespread alternative that provides similar access to the material but with the consent of creators and, one assumes, the potential to turn the portion of the scanlation audience that aren’t currently paying customers into buyers, at least to some degree. One potential obstacle to that that particularly interests me are the creators themselves. I’ve heard that there’s a fair amount of resistance to digital distribution among manga-ka, either because they conceived their comics to be read on paper or because they’re concerned about unlimited reproduction of digital versions of their work. (Who left this barn door open?)

Now, I’ve only heard about this reluctance from a few people, but they strike me as people who are in a position to know. Still, it’s anecdotal, and I recognize that. But, running with the premise that this resistance exists to varying degrees, I’d like to ask you to engage in a little role playing. What argument (preferably diplomatic) would you make to a manga-ka to convince them of the benefits of more timely, less immediately profitable, digital delivery of their work? The obvious one is that it’s already happening without their participation or consent, and they might as well control it to whatever degree possible, but I’d like to hear your thoughts on the subject.

I’m so much more of a manga fan than an anime partisan, but I do like to track publisher efforts to minimize the allure of pirated content, so I’m running this press release on the new Viz Anime portal after the jump. One thing does strike me, and that’s how un-sexy the adjectives are for this kind of initiative. I mean, “official” and “licensed” and “legitimate” just don’t set the pulse racing, you know? Of course, I’m also opposed to stupid lingo development, so I’m not about to suggest “hipper” alternatives. It’s just something that occurred to me.

When I first looked at some pages of Arata: The Legendover at Viz’s Shonen Sunday site, my first thought was that someone was really trying for a Yuu Watase vibe, until I looked at the credits and realized that person was the venerable shôjo manga-ka herself, making her shônen magazine debut. (I’m not very bright.) For whatever reason, I tend to enjoy comics for boys created by women, but the first couple of chapters of Arata didn’t really grab my attention. Having read the first print volume, my attention is newly grabbed. This is some snappy stuff.

I’ve liked a lot of Watase’s manga. Alice 19th and Imadoki! (both from Viz) are particular favorites. (I rather intensely disliked Absolute Boyfriend, also from Viz, but that’s neither here nor there.) I tend to like her better when she keeps things lively, and that seems to be one of the guiding principles behind Arata. Plot twists come quickly and cleanly, and they promise lots of interesting developments in future chapters.

The series opens with a boy named Arata forced into drag to fulfill a family obligation to the local princess. This goes rather badly wrong when the princess’s ostensible protectors try and murder her and pin the blame on Arata. He flees a bit farther than he intended, winding up switching places (temporal and dimensional, apparently) with another boy named Arata.

Modern Arata is a bully-magnet in contemporary Japan whose plans for a happy high-school life are undone when one of his chief junior-high tormentors transfers into his class. Maybe life in a mysterious dimension being chased by murderous godly swords-persons isn’t so bad? Okay, it probably is so bad, as Watase can be rather brutal to her protagonists, but both Aratas seem willing to try and make the best of their respective situations.

It’s a great set-up for an action fantasy, and I particularly like the parallel fish-out-of-water situations. Both Aratas are appealing types, and they’re surrounded by the expected range of endearing-to-menacing supporting characters. (There’s also a bossy granny, and bossy grannies make just about every manga better.)

Since this is Watase we’re talking about, you know it’s going to be drawn well. Her work is always detailed but clean, and her action sequences seem a little crisper than usual, if anything. It’s something of a running joke that all of her male characters look the same, but there’s an appealing variety here. Maybe having two male leads inspired her to stretch a bit more. Her designs for the fantasy world are lush and eye-catching, and it’s fun to watch a guy in a school uniform dash around in them.

In spite of its shônen magazine home, this is really just Watase doing what she does really well – telling the story of a likeable, average person thrust into an alien situation and finding that they have a challenging destiny to fulfill. I think fans of her shôjo work will like it a lot, and I hope readers who wouldn’t touch shôjo with a ten-foot pole will discover a talented creator.

(This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.)